Tuesday, March 3, 2009

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Obama administration plans to reverse a regulation from late in the Bush administration allowing health-care workers to refuse to provide services based on moral objections, an official said Friday.

The rule protects the rights of health care providers who refuse to participate in certain procedures.

The Provider Refusal Rule was proposed by the Bush White House in August and enacted on January 20, the day President Barack Obama took office.

It expanded on a 30-year-old law establishing a "conscience clause" for "health-care professionals who don't want to perform abortions."

While the U.S Department of Health and Human Services says it doesn't want to take away the freedom to deny a physician from, for example, participating in an abortion, it does want to restrict their ability to deny "family planning."